[bell rings]
Avalokiteshvara is the name of a person
who knows how to listen very deeply
and to understand.
By listening deeply
she can
bring a lot of relief to people.
And the practice is called the practice of compassionate listening.
The bodhisattva avalokiteshvara.
In Vietnamese, nam mo bo tat quan the am
Guanyin in Chinese.
With compassion in our heart
we can listen to the other person.
Even if the other person has a lot of suffering
has a lot of wrong perceptions, a lot of anger, you can still listen to him or her.
And by doing so we help him or her to suffer less,
The bodhisattva avalokiteshvara is not exactly someone outside of us.
Every one of us has
the seed of compassion,
understanding.
And if we allow the seed of understanding and compassion in us to be watered,
the energy of compassion and understanding will manifest.
And we shall be able to listen also with
compassion
and understanding.
So, during the time of chanting,
the collective energy of mindfulness will be generated.
And it helps us
to water the seed of
compassion and understanding in us.
And the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara can
manifest
from us.
So, please enjoy, the chanting.
Bring the attention to your inbreath and outbreath,
allow your body to relax.
And for the energy of the sangha to penetrate
freely
into our body, you know, into our mind
for our nourishment and healing
because the collective energy of compassion in the sangha
bodhisattva has the power of healing.
In addition, we don't have to do anything.
Just allow the energy to penetrate
by the chanting.
We allow our body
to relax.
And we bring our attention to the sound of chanting.
[bell rings]
[singing]
Dear friends,
whenever we hear the sound of the bell,
we practice listening to the bell deeply.
Usually when someone
invites the bell to sound...
We don't say "hit" the bell,
we say
invite
the bell to sound.
...He or she should
wake the bell up first
with a half sound
like this
[bell rings].
That is a half sound.
But before he does that, she does that,
she has to practice mindful breathing first
to prepare himself.
And there is a verse for the bell master to use,
for breathing in and breathing out and to make himself or herself
available to the bell,
qualified
as a bell master.
You just cannot pick up
the instrument and then make the sound you have to prepare yourself.
So holding the...
May I borrow it?
...holding the stick like this
he will practice mindful breathing
a few times in order to calm himself down,
to make him or her into a real bell master.
And the verse is like this:
"Body, speech and mind in perfect oneness.
I send my heart along with the sound of this bell.
May the hearers awaken from their forgetfulness
and transcend the path of anxiety and sorrow."
That is a four-line verse
for you to breathe and to become
a real bell master.
"Body, speech, and mind in perfect oneness.
I send my heart along with the sound of this bell.
May the hearers awaken from their forgetfulness
and transcend the path of anxiety and sorrow."
And then you're calm,
you are fully aware, you are fully present.
And now you can
invite the bell to sound.
You invite, you offer half a sound
so that the whole community
become aware that a real sound, a full sound is going to be heard.
And everyone stop thinking, stop talking,
prepare themselves to receive the full sound.
The voice of the Buddha
calling you back to your true home.
In a practice center,
the sound of the bell is the voice of the Buddha from within
calling you back to your true home.
And so the bell master make a half sound
and allow you the time
to prepare yourself
for the reception of the full sound, the voice of the Buddha.
You stop what you are saying.
You finish what you were saying in a few seconds.
You stop your thinking.
Not only your talking but you stop also your thinking.
You go home
to yourself, with your inbreath.
And you enjoy breathing
to get prepared for the sound,
the sound as the voice of the Buddha from within
calling you back to your true home.
And then the bell master will allow you the time to
for one inbreath or one outbreath at least and then he or she will invite the bell
so that a full sound will be offered to the whole community.
And then everyone
will enjoy
breathing in and breathing out at least three times.
And when you breathe in, you say: "I listen,
I listen".
And when you breathe out,
you say: "this wonderful sound brings me back to my true home".
"Listen,
listen.
This wonderful sound brings me back to my true home."
No thinking.
Just listening,
listening very deeply to the sound of the bell
that will bring you back to your true home, in the here and now.
And the one who speaks
stops speaking and thinking about what to say next
and enjoy deeply his or her
inbreath and outbreath,
enjoy
his being in his true home.
That is the living dharma:
being in your true home.
And the one who listened to the talk also stops listening
and enjoys
her inbreath and outbreath.
Very nourishing.
In Plum Village, in France,
not only we enjoy the sound
of the great bell within our center
but whenever the bell, the church bell nearby
sounds we also stop and enjoy the church bell.
Not only we enjoy the church bell,
but every time the clock play the music,
every quarter of the hour, we also stop
thinking, stop talking and we go back to our breath
and we enjoy breathing in and out
whether we are in...
the dining hall or in the kitchen we do the same.
So, the clock, the music of the clock
is like
the mindfulness may help us to come home
and to enjoy our home.
Also when you hear the telephone ringing,
you practice.
You are supposed not to run to the telephone.
You're supposed to stay wherever you are
because the sound of the telephone is also the voice of the Buddha
calling you back to your true home.
Stay wherever you are and go back to your inbreath.
Listen, listen.
This wonderful sound brings me back to my true home.
And then after having
practiced like that two times,
you do walking meditation to the telephone,
or you take the telephone out
and answer.
And if you are the one
who is called or who want to make a phone call,
you prepare yourself
before making
the number.
You practice going home to yourself.
And there is also a verse
for you to practice.
Verses, words can travel
thousands of kilometres.
They are to bring about more understanding,
"mucho" understanding.
I vow that what I am going to say
will be
beautiful
like flowers and
embroideries.
I vow that everything I'm going to say
will help with more mature understanding and compassion.
And then, now you are qualified
to make a phone call.
And when you hear
you hear the sound
at the end of the line,
you know that
the other person is listening
breathing in and out
and you know that you have a chance to practice breathing in and out with her
so both of you
are breathing in and out mindfully at the same time.
It's a very beautiful practice.
We call it telephone meditation.
And then, in Plum Village,
in the Deerpark Monastery also,
if we use the computer,
the computer is programmed so that every quarter of the hour
there will be a bell of mindfulness,
so that you can stop your work and go home
and enjoy your inbreath and outbreath.
And you know that when you call Plum Village or Deerpark
you don't expect them to answer right away after the first ring.
They are breathing in and out.
Listen, listen. This wonderful sound brings me back to my true home.
And you enjoy
deeply your inbreath and outbreath three times.
The bell master tonight
is a monk
from
New Zealand:
Marda Fabvian,
the field of the Dharma.
Enjoy
the mindfulness bell, enjoy your inbreath and outbreath three times.
If you'd like to use different kind of verses,
you might use the verse: "I have arrived.
I'm home."
"I have arrived.
I'm home."
Or you might like to say:
"I listen,
I listen deeply".
This wonderful sound brings me back to my true home.
Or you may say:
"Breathing in, I feel calm
and relaxed,
breathing out, I smile."
Calming.
Smiling.
Breathing in, I establish myself in the present moment.
Breathing out, I know this is a wonderful moment.
Calming,
smiling.
Present moment,
wonderful moment.
When you come home to the present moment
with your inbreath
you become fully alive, fully present.
You can touch
life in the here and the now.
You feel that you are alive.
You touch the miracle that you are alive.
Because to be alive that is the greatest of all miracles.
And with only one inbreath you can touch that miracle.
That is why you can say:
"Present moment,
wonderful moment."
If someone asks you:
"My dear friend,
Has the most wonderful moment of your life arrived?"
He wants to know whether the most wonderful moment of your life has arrived.
It would be a pity if such a moment
does not arrive at all.
Then, you may have the tendency to say:
"Oh, it does not seem that it has arrived
that wonderful moment,
but I am sure that it will arrive soon, sometime in the future.
That is our tendency to answer.
But if we keep living
like the way we have lived our life in the past 20 years,
it will not arrive
in the next 20 years.
It might not arrive at all
that moment we call the most wonderful moment of our life.
And for many, many of us, that moment
does not arrive
at all
until we die.
The Buddha said:
"You have to make the present moment into the most wonderful moment of your life."
And this is possible.
Because if you
are able to go home to the present moment to the here and the now,
become fully alive,
become fully present,
you can touch all the wonders of life within yourself and around you.
Everything belonging to you is a wonder:
your eye, your ear, your nose,
your body, your mind.
And because you are not mindful,
you don't touch them deeply, you don't know that they are wonders
until you die and you begin to regret that you have not lived at all.
That is why our true home must be sought in the here and the now.
It can be touched in the here and now.
My true home
is not limited to...
...to a place,
to a time.
My true home is not Vietnam,
my true home is not France, my true home is not America.
my true home is not Africa,
my true home is not the Palestine,
my true home is not Israel.
Although they don't
let me go back to Vietnam, I still have my true home in the here and the now.
And maybe they are in vietnam but they don't have a home.
That is why I don't feel
as a victim.
And I don't feel that they are my enemies.
They are victims of fear.
They believe that if I go home
I will create an atmosphere of...
...of solidarity,
of friendship, of brotherhood
that may be threatening to their power.
And it is fear
that is an obstacle.
And I want to help them to be free from fear.
They are not my enemies, they are the ones I want to help.
They're objects of my practice of compassion and understanding.
I have no enemies.
During the war,
during the Vietnam War
it was so difficult for us
to voice our concern...
Many of us, most of us did not want the war.
The war put us in a situation where brothers have to kill brothers.
And kill with foreign weapons
and ideologies.
Communism and anti-communism imported
were imported.
Also weapons
used by the communists were imported.
Weapons used by the anti-communists were imported.
They gave us
guns
and ideologies and urge us to fight each other and kill each other.
We started a movement called
"Don't shoot your brother".
And our voice was silenced by
both sides
both warring parties.
We try to speak out.
We try to tell you, in a word, that we don't want the war.
We don't want the killing of each other
with foreign weapons and foreign ideologies.
And yet we were forced
to do so.
So those of us who practiced mindfulness,
understanding and compassion
we did not want to accept the war.
We wanted
to reconcile.
And our voice was not
allowed to be heard.
Sometimes we had to burn ourselves alive
in order to get the message across.
Thich Quang Duc
a friend of mine
one day
he burnt himself.
And his picture
appeared in the international press.
I was in New York.
And I saw that picture on the New York Times front page.
He's a friend of mine.
Nhat Chi Mai
one of the first six members of the Order of Interbeing,
my disciple,
she burnt herself calling for reconciliation.
She went to the Tu Nghiem Temple
very early in the morning
about two three o'clock in the morning,
she put a statue of the Virgin Mary
and Quan Yin
she left behind a set of letters
calling for
the President of North Vietnam,
the President of South Vietnam,
for everyone to come together and stop
the act of killing each other.
And then she doused herself with gasoline and she burnt herself.
Nhat Chi Mai is a very close
sister, close friend of Sister Chan Khong, Sister True Emptiness.
I was embarrassed.
She left behind a letter for me:
"Thai, don't worry,
peace will come.
Don't suffer too much, don't worry."
She was about to die
but she tried to comfort me, her teacher.
It's very, very difficult for us to voice our concern
although we were the majority
in the country.
We didn't want the war.
My book of poetry,
peace poetry,
I like to call it peace poetry
rather than anti-war poetry:
"He was condemned by the North and confiscated by the South."
So, when Cornell University invited me to come
and gave a series of lectures,
I took the opportunity to go out
and to call for peace.
And in June the 1st
in the year
1966
I met Martin Luther King in Chicago.
Exactly one year before,
really one year before,
on June the first
1965, I wrote him a letter
explaining to him why we had burnt ourselves.
This is not an act of suicide,
this is an act of love.
You want to transmit a message
but you have no other ways,
you have to burn yourself in order for your message to get across.
So, the suffering of the monk who burnt herself to get the message across,
a message of love and compassion,
is of the same nature of the act of Jesus Christ dying on the cross.
Dying with no hate
no anger
only with compassion.
Leaving behind
a compassionate call
for peace,
for brotherhood.
So, exactly one year after, I met him in Chicago.
We talked for some time
and then, after that,
we went out to meet with the press.
And that day he came out against the war in Vietnam.
That is the day when
we combined our efforts
of working for peace in Vietnam
and fighting for civil rights in America.
Two years later I met him again
in Geneva
in a conference call
organized by the World Council of Churches.
There're people like Linus Pauling
at the conference.
He [MLK] stayed in the 11th floor.
I was on the 4th floor. He invited me up for breakfast.
I was retained by the press,
I came up late.
And he kept the breakfast warm for me. He waited for me.
I told him: "Martin, you know something, in Vietnam they call you a bodhisattva".
[person in crowd] A what?
They call you a bodhisattva:
an enlightened being
trying to awaken other living beings
and help them go in a direction of compassion and understanding.
I'm glad I had the chance to tell him
because a few months later he was assassinated in Memphis.
We were in France
we had a bureau office
representing the Buddhist community in Vietnam.
We wanted to represent the mass of people who did not have a voice,
who did not have a chance to speak out.
So we live as a community
in Paris
and our office
in a poor quarter of Paris
number eleven
of the Street
And that quarters
were inhabited more by people
of Arab origin.
Every time I applied for a visa to go to America it was turned down.
Automatically.
They didn't want me to come to America
because they believed that
I harm, I might be harmful,
I may be an obstacle for the war efforts in Vietnam.
I was not allowed to go to America,
I wasn't allowed to go to England!
Every time I wanted
to go to America on a speaking tour, I had
to write a letter
to someone like Senator McGovern
or Senator
Robert Kennedy
asking them to send me a letter of invitation.
And the letter is something like this:
"Dear Thich Nhat Hanh, I'd like to know more about the situation of the war in Vietnam.
Please come and inform me.
And if you have difficulties concerning the visa, please telephone me at this number.
Only with such a letter that I could
have a visa
otherwise, it's no way.
I remember one day I flew from Japan back to Paris
I did not have a visa
for transit
in Seattle.
I flew from Tokyo
to New York via Seattle and then to Paris.
I want to stop in New York to meet with a friend in the peace movement
Alfred Hassler, of the Fellowship of Reconciliation.
And when I landed in Seattle
I was locked in a place
where I could not see anyone.
I look around and see many pictures hang: "Wanted" "Wanted" "Wanted"
They took my passport.
They didn't allow me
to be in touch with anyone.
And then,
when the plane is about to take off they gave my passport back.
It's very difficult.
One day when I was in Washington DC,
I told you already
the Baltimore Sun
reporter came and informed me that
there's a dispatch from Saigon
informing the government of the United States of America,
of France, of England
United Kingdom and of Japan
asking them not to honor the passport of Thich Nhat Hanh
because he has been saying things that are not helpful
to the war efforts against communism.
And in Vietnam
my books, my articles
my poetry was banned
by both the communists and the anti-communists.
I risk deportation
and put in jail
because of what I had done:
calling for peace
and speaking
against the war.
It was my intention to
go only
three months
to give the series of lectures in Cornell
and then to make a tour
of America and Europe and go home.
I was
working with my friends in a school of youth for social service
the Van Hahn Buddhist University that I had founded in 1964.
All my friends,
co-workers were in Vietnam.
I didn't want to go very long.
I intended
to come here only for three months.
But it has been 38 years already. I have not been able to go home 38 years.
And that is why I have been
sharing the practice
with friends in Europe, in America,
in other countries.
But because I have found my true home
I don't suffer.
The truth is that during the first year of my exile, it was difficult,
quite difficult.
Although I was already 40,
although I was already a dharma teacher
having many monks and nuns
as students, disciples
and yet I had not found my true home.
I can give very good lectures on Buddhism, on the practice of Buddhism
But I
had not trully arrived.
Intellectually, I had a lot of Buddhism
I had been trained
several years in a Buddhist institute
and practiced since the time I was 16.
During the time I was a young monk, I try my best to renew Buddhism,
update Buddhism so that it can respond
to the real situation of suffering.
Called Engaged Buddhism.
The kind of Buddhism that can offer you the answers
to the burning questions of society
questions like war, social injustice,
political suppression, poverty,
violence and so on.
It was very difficult for me
during the first two years
because my intention was to bring about informations to the world,
the kind of information that were not available
to people because the warring parties had all the mass media.
In speaking tour,
I slept
one or two night in each city,
in America, in Europe,
in Australia,
and so on.
The whole time
when I woke up
at night I did not know where I was.
Very difficult, very hard.
And after,
I had to breathe in and out and to find out where I was,
what city, what country.
And I dreamt of going home
to my root temple in central Vietnam climbing a hill,
a green hill,
beautiful trees.
And half the way to the top of the hill I woke up
and realized that I was in exile.
And the same kind of dream repeated again and again.
I was very active.
I was making friends
with many people:
Catholic priests,
Protestant ministers,
professors,
young people,
children.
And my practice was the practice of mindfulness. I try
to live in the here and the now and touch the wonders of life in my daily life.
I survived by that practice.
The trees in Europe were so different from the trees in Vietnam:
the fruits, the flowers, they're all different. And the people also.
So I learnt to make friends
and play with German children, French children,
African children,
British children.
I big friend with
Anglican priest, Catholic priest,
Protestant ministers and so on.
But thanks to that practice
I was able
to find my true home in the here and the now.
And I stop suffering
and the dream did not come back anymore.
People think that I suffer when I cannot go back to Vetnam, but
that's not the case.
If I go to Vietnam, that will be a joy.
To be able to offer the teaching to the monks, the nuns and lay people there
and talk to the artists,
to the writers and others.
But if I cannot go,
I don't have to suffer.
I can meet with people, other people
in other countries,
like in China, in Korea, in Japan, in Spain, in England,
in Canada
and so on.
And the formula:
"I have arrived,
I'm home"
is
the embodiment, the expression of my practice.
It express my understanding of the teaching of the Buddha.
It is
the cream of my practice: I have arrived, I'm home.
And since the time I've found my true home, I did not suffer anymore.
The past is longer a prison for me.
The future
is no longer a prison
for me.
I'm able to live in the here and the now.
I'm able to touch my true home.
And I know that
the future
is available
through the present.
This is what I have found.
When you touch the present moment deeply,
you touch the past.
And if you know how to handle the present moment properly,
you heal the past.
Many think that the past is already gone, you cannot do anything.
You cannot go back to the past and fix things and repair things.
But according to this teaching of the Buddha
the past is still there with all the pain and suffering.
If you know how to come home to the present moment
and touch the present moment deeply
you touch the past,
and you can heal the past.
And when you heal yourself, you heal your ancestors.
And this is possible.
My ancestors have suffered in me.
I've also suffered.
And since I am able to
touch
the present moment deeply, I heal myself
and I heal my ancestors including my
parents,
my father,
my mother,
my brother, my sister, my grandfather, my grandmother.
When I practice walking,
I generate energy of freedom
and solidity.
And I feel that all my ancestors
enjoy the freedom and the solidity that I generate with the practice of walk.
Because, to me,
my ancestors are always alive in me,
fully present in me, in every cell of my body.
And if I'm free, they're free.
If I heal, they heal.
When I take a step with solidity and freedom,
all of them take the step with me.
And you have to take that step with all your being.
full awareness, full concentration in order for the step
to be a really solid, to be free.
In order for you to be able to touch life, the oneness of life in that moment.
That is healing and
nourishing.
So the act of making a step is an act of freedom,
act of liberation.
You liberate yourself, you liberate your ancestors.
It's an act of revolution.
Please, believe me.
You cannot make such a step unless you invest entirely your body and your mind
100%
When you breathe in,
you bring
all yourself together,
body and mind.
You become one.
And equipped with that energy of mindfulness and concentration,
you make a step
and you have inside that
this is your true home.
You are alive, you are fully present, you are touching life
as a reality.
Your true home is not an abstract idea,
it is as a solid reality that you can touch
with your feet with your hand
and with your mind.
The kingdom of God or the pure land of Buddha
for me they are not
abstract ideas.
It's something you can touch in every moment, you can live
in every moment.
It is available in the here and the now.
If you know how to make yourself available
then the kingdom is available,
the pure land is available,
your true home is available.
And nobody can
take away that true home.
They can occupy your country, yes.
They can put you in prison, yes.
But they cannot take away your true home, your freedom.
So, it's very important it's very...
fundamental, it's very basic
that you touch your true home.
And you'll realize your true home
in the here and the now.
And the energy with which you can do so is mindfulness
and concentration.
And these are energies of the Buddha.
All of us have
the seed
of mindfulness and concentration in us.
This is a fact.
Because all of us are capable of drinking
our tea mindfully.
When I drink my tea, I want to really drink my tea.
I might like to breathe in to bring my mind home to my body
and establish myself fully in the here and the now.
You have to be there,
fully
and when you are there fully
the tea will be there for your fully.
If you are not there, the tea is just
something like a...
ghost
not very real.
Mindfulness help you
to become fully...
present
and fully alive in the here and the now.
It does not take long it might take just one step
one inbreath.
And by making a step or breathing in you bring your mind back to your body.
In your daily life
your body may be here
but your mind may be...
there.
They go in two different directions.
And you are in a state of distraction:
mind and body
are away from each other.
Your mind may be occupied,
preoccupied by your project, your fear, your anger.
Caught in the past, caught in the future.
But between your mind and your body there is something:
your breath.
And as soon as you go home to your breath: breathing in I know I am getting in,
and then your body and your mind come together
very quickly.
While breathing in, you don't think of anything
you just focus your attention to your inbreath.
You focus.
You invest 100% of yourself into your inbreath, you become your inbreath.
There is a concentration mindfulness of your inbreath
concentration and your inbreath that will make body and mind come together
in just one moment.
And suddenly you become fully present, fully alive.
In the state of being
you pick up your tea
and the tea become a reality,
not a ghost.
And when you drink your tea you are just drinking your tea.
That's called "mindful drinking".
There's no thinking.
Just drinking, deep drinking.
You are real and the tea is real.
And when you are real, the tea is real, life is real.
And many people live
in a dream
because
they are not in the present moment, they don't know what is
going on in the present moment.
But because you're able to bring your mind back to your body
you are fully present and you become aware of what is going on.
What is going on is that I
enjoy my tea
There is no thinking at all, it's only
drinking of tea.
In that moment I live deeply the moment of drinking my tea.
When I breath in,
I become fully aware of my inbreath.
My inbreath becomes the object of mindfulness.
My inbreath becomes the object of my concentration.
And that's why my body comes home to my...
mind.
My mind comes home to my body right away.
Then I become fully present.
Suppose you, a group of people,
stand there and contemplate
a beautiful sunset.
If you keep thinking about the past
or thinking about the future
and your project,
you're are not really there contemplating the sunset.
The sunset is not for you.
So if you practice breathing in and out become and become
available in the here and the now and this beautiful sunset is for you.
Breathing in I know the sunset is there.
Breathing out I smile to the beautiful sunset.
In that moment, life is real.
And you have your true home.
When you go back to the present moment,
you might encounter the wonders of life
that are refreshing and healing. You might encounter
suffering,
violence,
hate,
fear,
discrimination.
And if you are a good practitioner,
you have enough mindfulness in order to
handle
whatever need to be handled.
Suppose anger is coming up in you
as an energy.
As a practitioner, you don't allow anger to be alone
in you.
Because if you let anger to be alone in you, anger will cause a lot of damage
in your body, in your mind
and maybe around you.
That is why we practice mindfulness of anger:
breathing in I know
anger is in me,
breathing out
I smile to my anger,
I embrace my anger.
You have a seed of anger
deep in yourself.
But you also have a seed of mindfulness deep in yourself ,
you have a seed of compassion in yourself.
When anger is touched, when the seed of anger is touched,
it manifests in through
a kind of energy called anger.
Suppose this is your consciousness.
It has two layers.
The lower layers co is called store consciousness.
And the upper layer is called mind consciousness.
You have a seed of anger here.
You also have a seed of joy,
of mindfulness,
of compassion, of non-discrimination.
You have a seed of anger, of despair, of jealousy, of discrimination
in the depth of your consciousness.
But when the seed of anger
is left alone there,
in the store consciousness,
you don't water it, no one come and touch it, you're okay.
You can laugh you, you may have a good time,
but that does not mean that you don't have the seed of anger in you.
As soon you hear someone saying something
or doing something the seed of anger in you is touched.
And it become a zone of energy
under the realm of mind consciousness.
In Buddhism
we call it a mental formation.
Anger is a mental formation.
In my tradition we speak of 51
categories of mental formations,
We have a seed of discrimination in us.
We have a seed of non-discrimination in us.
That is true.
If the seed of discrimination is watered every day becomes very important.
And it doesn't allow the seed of non-discrimination to manifest.
If the seed of anger
becomes stronger and stronger every day, the seed of compassion
have less chance.
And that is why
every time a negative seed is touched
and manifest
we have to take care of it.
That is why
I spoke about mindfulness of anger.
Mindfulness is the capacity of knowing what is happening
what is happening is anger has manifested.
So as a practitioner
you ask the seed of mindfulness to manifest at the same time.
And if you are a diligent practitioner
the seed of mindfulness in you is strong enough
and it's very easy for you to touch and invite it to come up
and it come up become a zone of energy.
Suppose anger is energy 1.
Mindfulness is energy 2.
Mindfulness is mindfulness of something.
And here
mindfulness of anger.
Mindfulness here has
the following function: recognizing
anger as anger.
Mindfulness of breathing: breathing in I know this is my inbreath.
Breathing out I know this is my outbreath.
Recognizing inbreath as inbreath,
recognizing outbreath as outbreath.
Recognizing drinking as drinking,
recognizing walking as walking.
That's the function of mindfulness.
So, the energy of mindfulness generated by your breathing, your walking
has the capacity of recognizing anger as anger.
Breathing in
I know
anger is in me.
Breathing out
I take good care of my anger.
Recognising anger
and embracing
anger.
This is an art.
This is a practice,
there's no fighting.
Mindfulness
is generated not to fight anger
but to recognize anger and to hold anger
very tenderly.
That is Buddhist practice.
You do not transform yourself into a battlefield:
the good fighting the ego. That's not Buddhism.
Because you are mindfulness but you are also anger
and mindfulness play the role of a big sister,
holding the angry, the suffering younger sister
and help her to transform.
A mother
is working in the kitchen
and she hear the baby crying.
She very much care for the baby.
So she stop,
walk in the kitchen she put down
whatever she's holding and she goes to the room of the baby.
The first thing she does is to pick her up and hold her tenderly into her arms.
That's the mother.
She doesn't know what's wrong with the baby yet
but the first thing she does is to pick up the baby and hold her
mindfully.
We do the same thing as a practitioner.
Every time anger or despair come up,
we generate
the energy of mindfulness
in order to recognize
and to embrace tenderly.
Tenderly.
And if we know how to practice mindful walking or mindful breathing
we continue to generate mindfulness.
And we
hand that energy in order to recognize and to embrace.
And
we can bring relief
because
mindfulness as an energy
embracing anger as another source of energy tenderly.
Big brother, younger brother.
Although the mother has not
realized what's wrong, but the fact that she's holding the baby tenderly
can already bring a relief to the baby and the baby may stop crying.
If the mother continue to hold the baby tenderly with mindfulness
she'll find out what's wrong.
The baby may be hungry,
the baby may have
fever,
or the diaper may be too tight.
As a mother
she can find it out very quickly.
As practitioner
you can find out very easily
why this anger.
And you can see the roots of that anger.
You find out the nature, the root of that anger.
If the mother found out what is wrong with the baby
she can fix the situation
very quickly.
If the baby is hungry, she give her some milk,
if the diaper is too tight, she just
undo it and do it again.
So, after having embraced tenderly
your anger,
you might like to continue
the practice of mindful breathing, the practice of mindful walking
and look deeply
into the nature of your anger
and find out what is the root of your anger.
Recognizing, embracing and looking deeply.
Because mindfulness
is the kind of energy
carrying with her
the energy of concentration.
Wherever mindfulness is, concentration is also.
When you are mindful of your inbreath,
you are concentrated in your inbreath.
When you are mindful of your tea, you concentrate on the tea.
That is why
the more powerful mindfulness is,
the more concentration you get.
With that mindfulness and concentration, you practice looking deeply
and you get insight.
And that insight is going to liberate you
transform your anger.
There is a story
of a young boy
who used to come to Plum Village every summer
with his younger sister.
And they practiced mindfulness as children.
The boy had difficulty with his father.
He blamed his father.
Every time he fall down and get hurt his father always shouted at him
instead of coming and help him.
So, his relationship with his father was difficult.
And he vowed that when he grew up he would not be like his father.
If he has children and then if
his child fell down and get hurt he will not shout at him,
instead he'll come and try to help.
That was his determination.
One day, he was playing
in the Lower Hamlet of Plum Village
and her sister were playing with another little girl on a hammock.
The girl fell down and get hurt
and the blood was
coming down .
Suddenly, he found himself very angry
He wanted to shout: "Stupid! How could you do something like that?"
And because he had been practicing mindfulness, he was able
to refrain from shouting
and he recognized
that he was exactly like his father.
Instead of trying
to come and help his sister
he had the tendency to shout at her.
He hate
what he has within himself.
So when he practice
mindful breathing, he knew
that this is the continuation of his father inside of him.
He's not different from his father.
And with that insight
he turned around and practiced slow walking
when he had seen someone coming to help his sister.
And during slow walking he recognized that
he's a continuation of his father.
The energy of anger has been transmitted by his father.
And if he does not practice
he's going to become exactly like his father.
And he will treat
his children
in the future in the same way.
That is called Samsara:
continuation.
And suddenly he had a desire
to go home and tell his father that he has the same kind of energy
and he would invite his father to practice with him.
And when that intention was born in him
his anger resentment towards his father began to dissolve.
What kind of insight did he get?
He got the insight that
he is exactly like his father. He has the same kind of habit energy.
That is why he wanted to practice and he see himself as a victim of that energy,
victim of the transmission
of that habit energy.
And he saw that his father also was a victim of that
transmission.
His father may have got it from
his own father.
And when he had that insight, his anger...
vis-a-vis father just...
stopped.
He got a transformation.
I think for...
a young man of 12 that is a remarkable
achievement.
It is inside that transform our afflictions.
And mindfulness has the power
of recognizing, embracing, looking deeply
getting the insight that transform your depth,
that get you free.
Transformation
and healing and freedom.
And when a young man is liberated the father in him is liberated
and the ancestors in him are liberated
and the circle around samsara.
What the young man realized
is that...
he's not a victim of his father,
he's a victim of that habit energy.
And his father also is a victim of that habit energy.
And when you are able to transform you,
you are in a situation to help transform him or her.
The one...
that you have you have believed to be your oppressor,
the source of your suffering.
And that is my my practice.
I do not have enemies.
Even...
they've created a lot of suffering, a lot of injustice, they've tried to kill me,
to supress me.
But they are not my enemies. They are those I want to help.
Because I have become free, I have changed myself, I have transformed myself.
That's why...
I do no longer
see myself as a victim.
I know that if I can transform myself, I can help transform them.
If you practice
and if you can transform your mind, your heart
you become a boddhisatva.
And then...
you will be in a position to help them transform
those
you used to consider as oppressors...
abusers.
Those you considered to be the one who discriminate against you
trying to suppress you, and kill you and so on.
They're also victims of their own ignorance,
their own anger. They don't know how to handle
their craving, their anger,
their violence,
their fear.
So the path...
is to transform yourself into a bodhisattva
with plenty of
understanding, insight and compassion
And when you have these energies, you are free
and you are in a position of helping
other people to become free also.
This is the path...
shown to us by the Buddha.
And every one of us
has the seed of mindfulness, concentration and insight
in himself or in herself.
You are able to cultivate these three kinds of energies
for our own liberation and healing.
And we shall use the same kind of energy to help the transformation and healing
of the world.
When you look up,
you see
a temple.
The temple is in your heart, the lotus in your heart.
Underneath there was the word "smurty". "Smurty" means mindfulness.
And then there is the word "samadhi". It means concentration.
And there's the word "prashna",
that is insight.
And that is the kind of energy that are in us
to be cultivated, to develop.
That is the energy of the Buddha in us,
the energy of transformation
and healing.
During our retreat
we practice mindful breathing
mindful walking.
That is why
we are encouraged to use our time
for the practice.
If we talk a lot, there will be no time to...
enjoy our inbreath-outbreath, our walking.
There will be time when we are encouraged to talk to each other:
dharma discussions.
We will be sharing our insights,
our way of overcoming our suffering.
And when we practice eating our lunch, our breakfast,
we refrain from thinking.
We establish ourselves in the here and the now.
We pay attention only to the food that we eat.
When you pick up a piece of bread,
you do not think of the past, of the future,
you just touch the piece of bread...
deeply.
And we are able to see that piece of bread.
So, if you look deeply into the piece of bread, you see everything in it.
The piece of bread you hold in your hand is the body of the cosmos.
With a little bit of mindfulness, you can see
that the piece of bread is an ambassador form of the cosmos coming to you.
And if you can see the piece of bread
in its true nature, and then you can put it in your mouth.
Don't put anything else in your mouth, like your projects,
your fear, your anger. It's not healthy. Just put the bread.
Just chew the bread,
mindfully, with joy.
Don't chew your sorrow, your anger. It's not good for your health.
There's no thinking,
just...
the process of mindfulness as chewing.
We take our time to enjoy our breakfast
from time to time, repose and smile.
The brother in front of you is you,
the sister on your left is you.
They all belong to the sangha.
And together we generate
the energy of mindfulness.
The collective energy of mindfulness while walking, while sitting,
while eating, will be powerful
and it will penetrate into each of us.
We'll be healed by the collective energy and nourished by the...
collective energy.
Alone in our living room
we can generate
the energy of mindfulness.
But compared to the collective energy of mindfulness,
well,
it's not much.
Therefore, to be in a sangha
and to allow ourselves to be penetrated by the collective energy
of mindfulness with sangha is very important.
So, the coming together of a sangha is a very important fact,
is a miracle. And we should
profit from the opportunity,
allow ouselves to be transported by the collective energy of the sangha,
allow the sangha to embrace our...
afflictions,
our pain, our sorrow.
The sangha is the boat
that help you to float on the river of suffering.
Allow yourself to be
transported by the sangha by the collective energy of mindfulness.
And while eating you enjoy
the time being with the sangha.
You smile to your brother and sister in the practice.
You allow yourself to be nourished by the collective energy of the sangha.
Every moment of our daily life
mindfulness help us to be in the here and now.
And the real practice, the true practice...
is to allow every moment of our life to be a joyful movement.
That will be
possible thanks to the power of mindfulness and concentration
generated by yourself and generated by the sangha.
Tomorrow we shall have a...
mindfulness walk in the morning, we shall be walking together.
We'll walk in such a way that make the kingdom of God...
real, available in the here and now.
There're several of us that are very used to the practice.
We'll walk together and generate...
the collective...
energy of mindfulness together.
And you wil see that the kingdom, the pure land is available.
Subtitles by the Amara.org community